NYC88LA150 · Cessna 305A
Cessna 305A · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Colts Neck, NJ to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC88LA150
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 305A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 305
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N5202G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Colts Neck, NJTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Initial climb
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Loss of engine power
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel starvation
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Fuel system › Other
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Colts Neck, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT REPORTED THAT SHORTLY AFTER PICKING UP THE BANNER TO BE TOWED, ENG RPM BEGAN TO DROP. HE SWITCHED TANKS AND DROPPED THE BANNER BUT ALTITUDE STILL COULD NOT BE MAINTAINED. A LANDING WAS SET UP AND THE FLAPS SET AT 45 DEGREES. TOUCHDOWN WAS IN A LAND FILL AND DURING LANDING ROLL OUT, THE AIRCRAFT COLLIDED WITH A 10' HIGH CHAIN LINK FENCE. AIRCRAFT HAD STC FOR AUTO FUEL AND AUTO FUEL WAS USED. TEMPERATURE WAS 92 DEGREES AND THE OPERATOR SAID THAT HE HAD EXPERIENCED VAPOR LOCK WITH SOME OF HIS OTHER AIRCRAFT THAT DAY.
Probable cause
LOSS OF POWER DUE OT VAPOR LOCK OF THE AIRCRAFT ENGINE AND AN OFF AIRPORT LANDING AND COLLISION WITH AN OBJECT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC88LA150
- Event ID
- 20001213X25808
- Case number
- NYC88LA150
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ec1325db7abbf9805295ec0f20295ff6ca72652517bf8703770679becda49e8e; retrieved 2026-09-23T10:09:45.590Z.